1

.

BERND FICHTNER

REFLECTIVE LEARNING1

Problems and Questions Concerning a Current Contextualization of the

Vygotskian Approach1

To focus our theme we would like to describe a scene from Lucchino

Visconti’s marvelous film “Bellissima“:

Anna Magnani sits in her ghetto flat with her view fixed on the

shabby screen of an open-air cinema opposite for which she cannot

even afford the admission. She watches a scene from “Red River“ by

Howard Hawks. To the reproaches of her husband, who is only

interested in his every day affairs, she answers: “Oh Spartaco“ – what

a name for a chronically unhappy proletarian always sitting around in

his undershirt! – “Oh Spartaco, allow me my dreams.“

Certainly, this film is about nothing if not about the destruction of

her dreams, although at the same time it deals with the preservation of

dignity and with the love experienced by the dreamers. Perhaps it is

exactly the artistic quality of the film that allows illusion and

disillusionment to coincide in such a way that the human being is

saved with respect to both his body and his mind.

The film within the film here is no simple citation; it is rather a key

which opens the film itself as a complex system of self-referentiality:

In the relationship between the film in the film and the main plot of

the film the process of the destruction of the dreams of the principal

character is becoming the central theme. The relationship between the

film in the film and Visconti’s film becomes a means by which the

latter is making itself a subject of discussion as a film. Only for the

spectator can this self-referentiality become a means of reflection with

which he refers Visconti’s film to himself.

We now want to use this scene taken from Visconti’s film to

consult different aspects and dimensions of self-refereniality. We

1 In: M. H. G. Hoffmann, J. Lenhard, F. Seeger (ed.), Activity and Sign – Grounding

Mathematics Education. Festschrift for Michael Otte,. New York: Springer, 179-190

2 B. FICHTNER

narrow this questioning down to the content-part and the subject-part

of reflective learning. We hope it will thus become clearer what

“reflective learning” means.

We will begin with the following historical example: Wilhelm von

Humboldt was arguably the first person to introduce a concept of

reflective learning about 200 years ago. He did this within the context

of his practical administrative work related to education. Our second

step will be to consider how and why “self-referentiality“ became a

fundamental concept in Vygotsky’s approach within the political

context of the formation of a new society. The third step will be to

criticize certain tendencies of the current Vygotsky fashion which is in

the process of forfeiting the political core of the cultural-historical

paradigm as a science of subjectivity. Deleuze’s and Guattari’s

concept of désir enables our critique to regain a conception of the

individual as the social subject of his life. Finally, we will return to

Visconti’s film and outline issues and aspects of a concept of

reflective learning in reference to the reflective potential of art.

1. A HISTORICAL PROLOGUE: “LEARNING HOW TO LEARN“

IN HUMBOLDT

In 1806 and 1807 Napoleon’s troops inflicted a crushing defeat on the

Prussian army in the battles of Jena and Auerstaedt. The entire state of

Prussia collapsed. This catastrophe illuminated the extensive

backwardness of this society on economic, technological, and

political/cultural levels.

At the same time, this catastrophe was both the context and the

impetus for the Prussian reforms initiated by Stein and Hardenberg.

These reforms supplanted the traditional feudal society and as

“reforms from above“ were geared toward something new that had not

existed in Prussia beforehand.

As a part of this movement, the educational reforms aimed at

developing an entirely new type of school. The concept of “general

education“ (Allgemein-Bildung) functioned as a political strategy in

the development of a general public school for all children. In a

politically decisive administrative position, Humboldt organized this

educational reform around 200 years ago.

REFLECTIVE LEARNING 3

In an extremely concise and precise manner he worked out a new

conception of the contents of instruction, a new conception of learning

itself, and of the connection between the two.

The contents were limited to instruction in language and

mathematics. “Empirical and historical“ subjects such as history,

natural history, and geography were to be permitted as soon as they

had become a matter of theoretical reflection – which was not the

current state of affairs.

Instruction in language included those areas of philology which

had already been theoretically and methodically clarified:

philosophical grammar, Greek and Latin grammar. – The guiding

principle was: “The form of the language as language“ should become

perceptible in instruction. According to Humboldt, this could be

achieved “more easily with a dead language that causes astonishment

because of its unfamiliarity than with the living mother tongue“.

Instruction in mathematics was to take place in the form of a

mathematics characterized by exact logical deductions as taught by

Euclid, Lorenz, or according to some other precise conception of

mathematics.

The contents of instruction were no longer “objects“ in the

treatment of which useful skills and abilities were to be learnt as

according to the pedagogy of the Enlightenment. Here for the first

time, a theoretical conception of knowledge displaced knowledge in

an immediate practical sense. Instead of being oriented to the “needs

of daily life“ – as Humboldt described the immediate and pragmatic

relation to society – an orientation was established towards knowledge

on the highest level of a theoretical generalization. Astonishingly, at

the same time this caused a radical focus on the individual, more

precisely, on that activity which allows him to realize himself as the

subject of his learning.

Humboldt expressed this in the following manner:

With reference to the contents of instruction, from which

all original creative work must always follow, the young

person should be made capable of already actually

beginning to compile the subject matter to a certain extent

and to a further extent of accumulating it as he pleases in

the future and of developing his intellectual-mechanical

4 B. FICHTNER

powers. Thus, he is preoccupied in a twofold manner: with

learning, but also with learning how to learn. (1809, 169-

170, my italics – B.F.)

Within the scope of the pedagogy of the Enlightenment,

“mechanical skills“ were developed – particularly with regard to the

technical handling of articles for work, their material prerequisites and

means. This accounted, for example, for a large part of the instruction

that took place in the industrial schools.

Humboldt’s suggestion signalized a fundamental change. Instead of

a direct adoption of articles, substances, and knowledge as a finished

product, the activity of learning itself became the focus, but not

simply as some sort of automatism, activeness, or action.

Here, the characterization of learning as simultaneously being an

orientation towards the content “from which all original creative work

must always follow“ and an orientation towards “learning how to

learn“ as a conscious focus on the learning process itself seems to be

of primary importance. For only in this simultaneous orientation does

a simple reproduction of knowledge become replaced by a self-active

production of knowledge as a subjective constitution, by learning as

learning activity.

This formulates a conception that deals with the development of

individuality by means of acquisition of and access to knowledge at

the highest level of its generalization. That is, from a radical, one-

sided position general education (Allgemeine Bildung) is determined

as the sole purpose of instruction (Humboldt maintained, “Every

carpenter should be required to learn Greek“).

There are two dimensions to the solution of the problem of

generalization:

Knowledge at the highest level of generalization is connected

to the logic of the process of acquisition itself. – Learning

confronts itself as learning how to learn.

This necessarily requires a generalization at the social level:

compulsory public schooling for all pupils.

So much in the way of an outline of Humboldt’s concept. The

actual implementation of this conception was a failure – not because

of its radical, utopian perspective, but, rather, due to the contradictions

REFLECTIVE LEARNING 5

of bourgeois class society, which developed very rapidly during

Prussia’s industrialization (Fichtner 1996, 174-194).

2. VYGOTSKY: MASTERY OF ONE’S OWN BEHAVIOR AS

REVERSED ACTION AND SELF-REFERENTIALITY

Analogous to Humboldt’s situation, we find a similarly dramatic

socio-political context for the development of the paradigm associated

with the cultural-historical school.

We comprehend the cultural-historical school from its historical

context as an attempt within the humanities to define the subject in a

new way under revolutionary conditions.

This new characterization became necessary as a result of the

historic radical change and its social conflict-related pressures.

Although the political and social environment of this period was

shaped by the upheaval of an entire society and this was considered to

be an historic act of self-constitution by a social subject of history, it

became evident early on that such catchwords as “re-molding human

beings“ or “creation of new man“ included determinist elements.

Above all, it became evident that simply confronting people with

objective necessities was not sufficient to change their consciousness.

We consider the research undertaken by the cultural-historical

school to be an attempt to overcome both determinism and

voluntarism in the formulation of the political aims of this social

process of radical change. Categorically, Vygotsky emphasized the

fact that the human individual as a subject can be reduced neither to

nature nor to society.

Vygotsky’s attempt to establish a science of subjectivity was based

on a philosophical and methodological premise that could only be

formulated in a negative way: as the overthrow of any type of dualism

and, in particular, of the dualism between individual and society.

Within this context, the Theses on Feuerbach were of considerable

significance, especially the third thesis, which stipulates that a change

in reality necessarily includes a change in human beings themselves:

The materialistic doctrine concerning the changing of

(men’s) circumstances and education forgets that

circumstances must be changed by men and that the

educator himself must be educated. This doctrine therefore

6 B. FICHTNER

has to divide society into two parts, one of which is

superior to society. The coincidence of changing

circumstances and human activity or self-change can be

comprehended and rationally understood only as

revolutionary practice. (Marx 1983, p.156)

We consider this coincidence of changing circumstances and

changing human activity or self-change to be a general framework of

a revolutionary nature. Here, we do not wish to limit the concept of

“revolutionary practice“ to political activity in the strict sense of the

word. We consider human activity in a very general way to be

“revolutionary practice“ whenever this connection between change in

the world and self-change can be presumed.

Falk Seeger (1998) has demonstrated conclusively the central

importance of Vygotsky’s concept of “self-control or the mastery of

one’s own behavior“ for the entirety of his work. Vygotsky provided a

first systematic development of this concept in his study on “The

History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions”.

Three basic concepts are combined in this approach: “the concept

of higher mental function, the concept of cultural development of

behavior, and the concept of mastery of behavior by internal

processes“. (Vygotsky 1997a,7)

I need not go into detail on the famous metaphors Vygotsky uses in

developing his approach: the example of tying a knot in a

handkerchief in order to remember something and the no less famous

image of Buridan’s ass caught between two equally alluring bundles

of hay.

As Vygotsky himself described his approach:

In contrast to Lewin we attempt to provide for the concept

of mastery of one’s own behavior a completely clear and

precisely determined content. We proceed from the fact

that the processes of behavior represent the same kind of

natural processes subject to the laws of nature as all other

processes. Neither is man, subjecting processes of nature

to his will and intervening in the course of these processes,

an exception in his own behavior. But a basic and very

important question arises: how does he represent the

mastery of his own behavior to himself? ... We know that

REFLECTIVE LEARNING 7

the basic law of behavior is the law of stimulus-response;

for this reason, we cannot master our behavior in any other

way except through appropriate stimulation. The key to

mastery of behavior is mastery of stimuli. Thus, mastery

of behavior is a mediated process that is always

accomplished through certain auxiliary stimuli.

(Vygotsky 1997a, 87)

Here we have an explicit formulation of the main issue: how do

humans represent self-regulation to themselves?

Vygotsky provides certain clues about how to deal with this issue:

All clues refer to the social nature of this process in which human

beings present self-regulation to themselves.

Vygotsky describes these “certain auxiliary stimuli” as

“psychological instruments”. He does not understand them as a

mediator between subject and object. They are exclusively means of

the subject’s influence on itself. With its help the child organizes,

controls and governs its behavior in very different situations. – It does

not any longer react to an external stimulus – but creates, constructs

its behavior.

Thus Vygotsky characterizes processes as “mediatory activity” and

not as mediated. This ability of the human individual to produce his

psychological processes as mediatory, mediating activity can for

Vygotsky only be explained out of the subject-subject relationships.

Human self-regulation occurs in accordance with the so-called

“general law of cultural development“. This means that higher mental

functions progress from the outside to the inside, from the social level

to the individual level. “Initially the sign is always a means of social

connection, a means of affecting others, and only later does it become

a means of affecting oneself. „

Vygotsky concretized this in many examples. They are all to be

found in the context of the question: How does its way of thinking

change when the child learns to speak; and how does its way of

speaking change when it learns to think?

An Example: What are numbers?

The arithmetical idea of numbers is a generalization of numerical

attributes of things. Against this the algebraic idea is a generalization

of the subjects operation on which the development of the graphical

8 B. FICHTNER

numerical idea of numbers is based on. It is a conscious generalization

of the process of reasoning. On this basis the child is able to handle

arithmetical ideas more freely.

Vygotsky demonstrates the same phenomenon using the example of

grammatical structures:

I loosen the knot. I do that consciously. However I cannot

say how I did it. My conscious action does not come out to

be an action which has become conscious, because my

attention is focused on the act of loosening, but not on

what I am doing. The consciousness always represents

some part of reality. Object of my consciousness is the

loosening of the knot, the knot and what happens to it; but

not the actions I carry out loosening the knot, not what I

am doing. This can in particular become the object of the

consciousness, then this is the process of becoming

conscious. Becoming conscious is the act of

consciousness, whose object is the activity of

consciousness itself. (Thinking and Speech; German

edition: 1964, 168.)

At this point it would be appropriate to discuss the difference

between “objective meaning“ and objective “sense“ in detail along the

lines of the explication of this difference as found, above all, in

Leont’ev (1981). Furthermore, the concept of “inner language“

introduced by Vygotsky in an almost poetic form in the last chapter of

his “Thinking and Speech“ (Minck’s retranslation of 1987) is of

considerable significance in this context. Here we also find important

reflections on the issue of how humans represent self-regulation to

themselves.

We will cut our outline short here and summarize, even if

somewhat too hastily: The paradigm of the cultural-historical school

aims at establishing the humanities as a science of subjectivity. At the

core is a conception of a human who as the subject of his learning

process produces his or her uniqueness and unrepeatability not against

the society he belongs to but, rather, by means of this society.

This science of subjectivity views humans as individual social

beings who attain their autonomy to the extent that they do not simply

observe social wealth in objects, but also have their own subjective

REFLECTIVE LEARNING 9

means of the acquisition and expression of this wealth at their

disposal.

This conception of such a science of subjectivity must became

opposed to the system and became markedly contradictory to the

political and cultural changes in social life as these began to be

realized at the outset of the Stalinist era. The scientific category of

“personal sense“ facilitated, for example, radical criticism of social

living conditions. The actual system of their “objective meanings“

became less and less transformable into “personal sense“. Stalinism

placed the responsibility for this on the people themselves. The

Paedology Decree issued on July 4th, 1936 made any further work by

the cultural-historical school impossible.

3. A CRITIQUE OF CURRENT APPLICATIONS OF THE

VYGOTSKIAN APPROACH AND THE CONCEPT OF DESIRE

The current interest in the cultural-historical school in Europe, Latin

America, and the U.S.A. is astonishing and makes us somewhat

suspicious.

Where does this widespread interest in the work of a Marxist

scholar, and Communist of the former Soviet Union at American

universities and Brazilian ones (which we are more familiar with)

come from?

What difference exists between a subject who was determined to

develop and form social life in the Soviet Union of the 1920s and the

subject that is engaged in forming our present society?

What is the meaning of formation of identity in a society that is not

reconciled to itself, is not identical to itself and as a capitalist society

is currently caught up in dramatic changes within the context of

globalization?

What does development of the subject mean in an antagonistic

society that demands from the individual a balance of forces that is

impossible in society itself?

How can a paradigm and its basic concepts that were aimed at

making a practical contribution to the development of a society

without class differences, without exploitation of humans by humans

function in a society that is precisely based upon expansive

implementation of capital?

10 B. FICHTNER

The current reception and further development of the paradigm of

the cultural-historical school makes no mention of our reality, its

conflicts and contradictions and their significance for the development

of subjectivity and identity of children and youths, for their learning

and cultural appropriation.

The current reception and further development of the paradigm of

the cultural-historical school is far too lacking in mediating factors; it

has a peculiarly abstract tendency. The fundamental concepts and

strategies are usually not related to our reality in any concrete manner.

Currently profound and comprehensive processes of an economic

permeation of our society are taking place under the label of

“globalization“. Subsystems of our society such as public health

services, law, sports and, not least, pedagogical institutions are

forfeiting their relative autonomy to an ever greater extent. They are

degenerating to auxiliary and reinforcing mechanisms of the market.

Economy, that is, profit is rapidly and without any noticeable

resistance becoming the measure of all things. (Chomsky 1999) All

this represent factors of dramatic changes involved in how inner and

outer coherence of our society is being produced. Within this context,

practically all the traditional forms and functions of culture as a

medium of the social lifeworld are in the process of dissolution.

In the present discussion, the fundamental concepts of the cultural-

historical school are not related to this “disintegration of the social“

and to this dissolution of traditional forms of lifeworld. Since this

reality is not thematized, many of the concepts forfeit their

methodological potential. They no longer allow deliberation on the

fundamental and revolutionary connection between change in the

world and self-change of the subjects, between the development of

this society and the development of its individuals. Consequently, a

greater portion of current cultural-historical research exhibits a

pronounced orientation towards superficial craftsmanship, towards

technical and methodical optimization of what is already available: for

instance, the “Zone of Proximal Development” as a sort of

“scaffolding“ or “coaching“ or as a method for implementing group

work in existing forms of instruction.

Our own theoretical and practical work of the last few years has

made it increasingly evident that it is practically impossible to use

Vygotsky’s approach for the education of persons who must adapt to

REFLECTIVE LEARNING 11

the system of a society based on capitalist alienation and exploitation.

This would encompass an alienation from the original intentions of

Vygotsky’s entire work. We see one possibility of regaining the

connection between changes in the world and the self-change of

individuals in the works of Deleuze and Guattari. Here, the concept of

“desire“ plays a significant role 2.

Guattari liberated this concept from the psychoanalytic perspective,

which had bound it exclusively to the “libido“ as the biological source

of unconscious aspirations of humans. In this way, Guattari adopts a

position with regard to psychoanalysis similar to that of Vygotsky:

For me, desire encompasses all the forms of the will to

live, to create, to love, to generate a different society, a

different perception of the world, other values. Regardless

of which dimension of desire one considers, it is never

simply a general sort of energy, a vague function of chaos

or disorder. (…) Desire is always a way of producing

something. For this reason, I find it extremely important to

dismantle the classical psychoanalytic conception. I am

convinced that there is no biological-genetic process

within the child that determines the aim of desire.

However small a child may be, it lives out its relationship

to the world and its relationships to others in an extremely

creative and constructive manner. It is the schematizing of

the child’s semiotics by the school as a form of power that

causes a type of schema of non-differentiation. (1986,215

ff),

and, we would like to add, just as much so by all the other forms of

power within the contexts in which the child lives: in the family, in the

mass media, in the totalization of commodity-price relationships

within social relationships.

We would like to pose the following general question:

What is the productive, critical-analytical potential of this concept of

desire for a re-interpretation of the fundamental concepts of the

cultural-historical paradigms?

Is it possible to realistically analyze the origin of the higher mental

function in our social reality? If yes - how?

Is it possible to claim this also for the other concepts as for

12 B. FICHTNER

the concept of cultural development of behavior

the concept of mastery of behavior by internal processes

the concept of personality (Leont’ev)?

Only empirical and above all high-quality research can discover

what productive, critical and analytical potential this conception of

desire might have.

4. WORKS OF ART AS REVERSED ARTIFACTS AND ART’S

POTENTIAL FOR REFLEXIVE LEARNING

At a central sequence in Visconti’s film, we note how the protagonist

watches a movie and becomes engrossed in her dreams, and how the

film as a whole deals with the destruction of her illusions. The film

within the film presents the simultaneity of illusion and

disillusionment and, for the audience watching Visconti’s film, it

becomes a means of reflection on the nature of cinema in general and

on one’s own relation to this medium, etc. The film allows the

observer his or her freedom of interpretation and provokes reflections

and self-reflections.

This ability to present something and at the same time to thematize

the presentation itself as a presentation seems to us to be an indication

of the greatness of works of art. Such a presentation is always also the

destruction of any unmediated perception of presentations – the

destruction of presentation. Such presentations do not represent

reality, the world, but, rather, reflect our activity in the world.

Representation does not consist of the objects it designates.

This self-referentiality of art has enjoyed a practically inexhaustible

variety of forms and possibilities in the course of its history. To make

mention of just a few of these forms we would like to note some basic

principles and mechanisms involved in perception as aptly described

by Falk Seeger. He shows some pictures well known dealing with the

“figure-ground-relationship” within the psychology of perception as

for instance Figure 1.

REFLECTIVE LEARNING 13

Figure1. A complicated self-referential picture: A Sufi mandala

If the person, looking at one of those figures, focuses on

one of its parts (…) the figure switches after a while: What

had been at the forefront now seems to be at the back, and

vice versa. (...) The usual semiotic function of the sign as

pointing or referring to something else that is not given in

the sign or picture is short-circuited because the image

refers to itself. As a consequence ,the viewer is “left to

her or his own devices,” so to speak, and the normally

unconscious processes of of perception are made

conscious. (...) The key to an understanding of the

psychological functioning of those pictures is Vygotsky’s

idea of “reverse action”, of producing an artifact that is

operating on the individual, not on the environment.

(Seeger 1998, 330)

The here given picture is a “pure case“ of self-referentially, it

demonstrates the effect of self-referentially and nothing else. In work

of arts self-referentially is an origin of an enormous explanatory

potential.

14 B. FICHTNER

Works of art are not primarily objects. They can be made to be

such – as a commodity, as a fetish, as a status symbol, etc. Works of

art are artifacts that mediate a relationship. What sort of a

relationship? Each individual work thematizes art as a relationship.

Art defines itself in relationship to what it is not. It is neither a product

of labor nor is it nature, but, rather, something that does not exist in

this empirical sense: namely, free form and “definite negation“ of our

accessible, consummate world.

In contrast to our relationship to nature or to work, our relationship

to art is one in which we do not objectify ourselves and other things,

but, rather, as Marx expressed it: one in which man “behaves towards

himself as to a universal, and thus, free entity“.

A work of art does not represent anything. Nothing else can be put

in its place. By contrast, I can present the spoken word “tree“ in sign

language or in any alphabet used somewhere in the world, and it can

always be related to a particular object.

Cezanne’s pictures of Mont Saint Victoire do not represent a

mountain with the purpose of illustration or documentation. They do

not convey any meaning of or symbolize empirical reality – they do

not refer to anything beyond themselves. These paintings are art in an

immanent sense. They establish a relationship to art that continually

asserts itself against their reification. These pictures refer only to

themselves. But what differentiates them from the “pure cases“ in

which pictures thematize perception itself?

We would like to illustrate the particular potential of the self-

referentiality of works of art with the following two examples:

Kafka’s “The Castle“ : The character of the surveyor K. is not

based on some historical model and is not conceived of as

representative for a figure of some particular social standing. He is a

character who is anonymous, even with respect to himself, among

other anonymous characters. No one knows anyone else, even though

they all meet each other and speak to each other. In “The Castle“

everything is narrated just as it happens to K., as he sees and

understands it. There is no relationship whatsoever to any reality

beyond the confines of the novel. Any concrete form of reality is

totally absent. The castle does not symbolize some ruling power of

which K. is a subject. And yet power and powerlessness and

totalitarian coercion are present in every sentence. In the novels by

REFLECTIVE LEARNING 15

Zola, the world of social misery, the exploitation of workers is

realistically described from the outside. Zola’s characters were present

and still are in a great variety; but they always remain where they are

in actuality. Kafka writes within the fictional character of K., which

only originates while reading and makes reading a formidable

experience: I do not read the words, but, rather, the words read me and

they determine the rhythm and tone of my reading.

Velázquez’s “Las Meninas”: The painter , Velasques himself

pauses during his work. His gaze bores into the room where we, the

observers, are to be found. The majority of the persons present in the

scene on the left side of the easel also concentrate on the space in front

of and outside the painting, which is actually our location. In the

background a mirror hangs on the wall, but does not reflect the

models, the royal couple, but, rather, a part of the picture that

Velászquez is painting and that we can only see from behind. The

painted frame almost collides aggressively with the surface of the

canvas on which the entire scene is presented.

The idea of the reflecting mirror – one of the great themes of

European painting – is reversed in this image: painting itself, and not

reality, is reflected.

In the background, in the opening leading to another room, we see

Jose Nieto de Velázquez, the queen’s chamberlain. He is behind the

scene in much the same way as we are before it. Velázquez is facing

us; he enjoys the privilege of being able to see the picture. All of the

lines in perspective converge at his hand. This hand grasps the

perspective schema and manipulates the curtain.

As a whole, this work is a painting about painting: its theme is art

as a relationship. Velázquez’s replies to the question of what artistic

representation is in the form of an aporia: He openly reveals his

countenance, yet he conceals his work. “Las Meninas” is a picture

open to an infinite variety of interpretations. Velázquez permits the

observer to have freedom to interpret, but at the same time he forces

him or her to meditate on the paradox of representation.

What, now, might be the potential of the self-referentiality of art

for reflective learning? It is certainly not a one-to-one correspondence.

This would mean to study the system comprised of works of art, their

reception, and their effects with reference to the mechanisms involved

and to construct a model of reflective learning from these

16 B. FICHTNER

mechanisms. But the explanation of works of art by the proper

authorities seems to be more of a dead end.

Art is not didactic, art is not pedagogic, nor is it technical. Works

of art are not instruments for practical problem-solving. Works of art

mediate a relationship by providing space for the development of

thought.

University of Siegen

NOTES

Translated by Thomas La Presti

1 More than thirty-five years ago, Michael Otte introduced a group of students that I

was a member of to the main figures of the cultural history school (Vygotsky,

Leont’ev, Luria, and Dawydow) in a way especially typical of him – by explaining

theories as perspectives. The criterion of their appropriation and implementation can

be formulated by posing the question: Do they help us to make our experiences

capable of development? This essay is an expression of my thanks to him for these

insights. 2 Collaborating in various projects with Maria Benites I’m indebted to her for this

perspective on Deleuze and Guattari.

REFERENCES

Chomsky, N. (1999). Profit over people. Neoliberalism and global order. New

York: Seven Stories Press.

Fichtner, B. (1996). Lernen und Lerntätigkeit. Phylogenetische, ontogenetische und

epistemologische Studien. Marbug: BdWi-Verlag.

Guattari, F./ Rolnik, S. ( (1986). Micropolítica. Cartografias do desejo. Petropolis:

Vozes.

Humboldt, W.V. (1980). Werke in fünf Bänden. (Eds.. A. Flitner/K. Giel) Vol IV.

Der Königsberger und der Litauische Schulplan. (1809). Darmstadt: J.G.

Cotta’sche Buchhandlung.

Jameson, Fr. (1991). Postmodernism, or, The cultural logic of late capitalism. New

York: Duke University Press.

Leont’ev. A.N. (1981). Problems of development of the mind. Moscow: Progress

Publishers.

Marx, K. (1983). Theses on Feuerbach. In: E. Kamenka (Ed.) The portable Karl

Marx. New York: Penguin Books, 155 - 158.

REFLECTIVE LEARNING 17

Seeger, F. (1998). Representations in the mathematics classrooms. In: F. Seeger/J.

Voigt/U. Waschescio (Eds.): The Culture of the Mathematics Classroom.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and Speech. In: R.W. Rieber and A.S. Carton

(Eds.) The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. ( Vol.1. Problems of general

psychology, pp. 38-285) New York: Plenum Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological

processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1997a). The history of development of higher mental functions. . In: R.W. Rieber and

A.S. Carton (Eds.) The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol.4. New York: Plenum Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1997b). The historical meaning of the crisis in psychology. A methodological investigation. In: R.W. Rieber and A.S. Carton (Eds.) The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol.4.

New York: Plenum Press.